Touched, Touching

Touch, Bet With James

I heard a man named James say that shaking hands more than three times with anyone in any given day is against his personal code of conduct. He doesn’t do it because it just means the person is full of shit, that the person is insincere that twice is plenty. Once upon arrival, again when you leave is enough. He says that anything else reeks of a used car salesperson; smarmy. Dis-endeared by repetition. Dis-ingenuined by the nature of touch. I can not agree but it is my nature; I am apt to touch. I long to touch, need to touch others as a way to accept or deny their genuine nature. Some read eyes, some search in others for clues to their nature in words but I reach deeper in a very tactile way to seek that which gives me clues to the very character and temperament of the person.

I was trying to talk or rather make a bet with James and I shook his hands twice, he would not shake three times. I declined the bet which was a good idea in fact and no reflection in any negative way on James, just a fact after the fact of this little idea that was at that very moment beginning to grow. As an aside the bet now I know I would have lost.

I want to touch and feel people. It is a very real need not met in my existence nearly enough. I hug my children. I touch the hands of my husband. I kiss my aunts, hug my uncles, kiss them. We kiss. Our family kisses. I kiss my friends hello and goodbye. The connectivity of humans has long evolved I think into a place where Americans talk too much and touch too less, we call, we email, we leave hollow messages and never touch anyone that touches our lives; feel out lives, handle our lives. Touch, feel and handle all words with the similar meaning that incorporate in a way the verbiage we use when speaking also about living at all. We touch others’ lives with our own. We feel life and we handle life hopefully with care and regard. When we die we automatically think to tell our co-workers, our acquaintances, even our family when the last time we saw the deceased, or what we said to them or what they said to us but almost never about the last tactile encounter. Did we touch their hand as we left their door? Did we touch them? Do we even stop to remember that detail?

I am often reported to be a flirt. I have, when happy, an easy wide smile and open arms for those I barely know ready for hugs of greeting. I endear myself, perhaps feel too much publicly and strangely appear to others to invade personal space. I however am very perceptive and rarely have crossed an unwelcome personal boundary, though from a distance one watching might observe what they perceive to be unusual or overly familiar.

So a personal rule about not shaking hands more than three times? What other personal rules have we established? How much personal space do we need, what are our limits? How do we block those out that we should allow in? Perhaps I touch too much for most of the personal taste of others. I will not stop my quest for tactile knowledge, acceptance, and inclusion, proper or improper. I will be a participating party in the race of humans knowing that we are animals first and evolving much to quickly to forget our recent evolutionary leap from which we slept together huddled barely clothed or fed for warmth in caves and now we huddle together in droves over-fed, over-stimulated, technically wired but still longing for warmth of a not altogether different warmth than that of the cave. Simple human contact, one hand, one embrace, some exchange one at a time.
Touch someone you love. Touch someone you simply like or be revolutionary and touch someone you barely know.

Kimberly Lenora Stansfield